Take Black Panther home

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther, the story of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), a young African prince who takes on the mantle of king and superhero, has thrilled and inspired moviegoers around the globe this year.

From this month, fans can watch it over and over again on DVD in standard, HD and Blu-Ray formats. It’s already available on the local iTunes Store, as well as DStv BoxOffice.

If you fancy going old school, though, and plonking down some cash for a DVD, you’ll get never-seen-before extras, deleted scenes and outtakes. You’ll also get several making-of featurettes revealing the evolution of Black Panther, the remarkable women of Wakanda, the history of T’Challa’s proud nation and the cosmic origin and technological applications of the metal, vibranium.

Also included are a roundtable discussion with Black Panther film-makers and writers, a feature tracing the countless connections between heroes, characters and storylines within the Marvel cinematic universe and an exclusive sneak peek at Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Four things you probably didn’t know about Black Panther

The movie pulls from every writer who worked on the comic

Director Ryan Coogler, who also co-wrote the script, delved deep into the history of the acclaimed Marvel comic book series.

“We pulled from all of the comics,” Coogler says. “When you watch our film, you will probably see something from every writer that has touched T’Challa’s character in the Black Panther comics.

“Everything from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s initial runs through to Don McGregor, Christopher Priest, Jonathan Hickman and Brian Stelfreeze. We grabbed from it all.

“Each writer left their own mark, so Agent Ross [played by Martin Freeman in the movie] came from Christopher Priest’s run and the character of Shuri came from Reginald Hudlin’s run.

“Each run left something for us to pull from, but we pulled from absolutely all of them.”

The set was so impressive that even the actors found it mind-blowing

“It was incredible to walk on to the Wakandan sets,” enthuses Danai Gurira, who plays Okoye in the movie.

“Our production designer, Hannah Beachler, was amazing. I remember walking into the tribal council room and thinking ‘this room is stunning’. The floors were see-through. There were massive, beautiful panther statues. The throne was very African. The entire décor was very African.

“It was an amazing experience, which was very rich for my character because I stood there and I thought, ‘this is like nothing else on the  planet and it’s my character’s job to protect it’.”

A lot of the filming locations are in Africa

“We took a really important trip to South Africa to do a ton of research for ‘Black Panther’,” says Beachler.

“We went up and down the country, which helped immensely when we started to create the sets. It was incredible to see all the colours, the textiles and the way things were built.

“In the end, we shot a lot of plates and second unit footage in South Africa. We shot footage in Uganda, which was used to show the farm land and open space of Wakanda. It was beautiful.

“We also shot at Victoria Falls in Zambia. When the fighters come flying through the falls to the challenge pool, the falls are Victoria Falls. But when you get to the challenge pool, what you see behind them is a bit of Iguazu Falls, which is in South America. We smashed the two together because we wanted a horizon.”

Lupita Nyong’o learned new languages for the film

“The African language that we speak in the movie isiXhosa, which is a Bantu language from South Africa,” says Lupita Nyong’o, who plays Nakia in Black Panther.

“It has the clicks which my native tongue does not have, so I had to learn it for the movie. I worked very closely with a dialect coach to get it right. I also speak Korean in the film, which was a doozy. A week before we shot the scenes in South Korea, they finalised exactly what Nakia was going to say, so all week I kept practicing the lines over and over again.”

“However, I slipped up from time to time. At one point, the Korean extras laughed because they told me I’d said something about a barbecue by mistake – but we got there in the end.”